Intuitions aren't emotionals... Intuitions are feelings from the subconscious. A kind of 6th senses in itself. Intuitions is called to take a greater role in space travels than rationality, which requires measures and analysis in order to take a decision, but in a Universe which has a different time scale that dwarf Human life expectency, the experience of gathered inside a single Human life, won't be enough to tackle the events occurence happening inside our Universe. Since the time scale of events is so huge, current models and predictions can't be made accurately, so in the occurence of such event, that occurs once every million years or so, a rational model won't calculate the risk fast enough to takle the event appropriately. So a good Intuitionist, will assess the risk just in time and make the proper decisions in time to avert potential consequences or after shocks...

Its not really emotions as with animals, its more like a bird that sense the magnetic field of the Earth to find the north pole in its migrations. Our brain as the same abilities and even more so. It is why science is poised to take a back seat in the area of space explorations...